


sunlight is a villain when it takes away the night (and you're about the same, babe, when you tell me you're alright)

by redgoldblue



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Episode: s10e07 Ka 'i'o (DNA), Gen, Hurt Steve McGarrett, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Shut Down Steve, Steve McGarrett whump, could be read as / or & which is why it's tagged as both, not either of the usual uses of that though, the show provided the h i'm providing the c, there's only one bed...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23411008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redgoldblue/pseuds/redgoldblue
Summary: The best thing Danny knows is just to be there for Steve. Luckily that's exactly what Steve needs. (Ka 'i'o coda)
Relationships: Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 7
Kudos: 113





	sunlight is a villain when it takes away the night (and you're about the same, babe, when you tell me you're alright)

**Author's Note:**

> Ridiculously long title is from Just Ask by Lake Street Dive, which, like. if you wanted to listen to a song for this fic and also just for McDanno in general, that's it.  
> So I have literally six WIPs right now (and that's just the fanfics), and I'd promised myself that I wouldn't start anything else until I finished like. at least two of them. However, I'm behind on H50, so I watched Ka 'i'o two days ago, and promptly decided that if I started and finished something in the same day it didn't count. So, I present to you: Ka 'i'o coda, started and finished yesterday (and edited today).

Despite his earlier claims, Steve doesn’t blink an eye when he comes out of the bathroom later that night and Danny is already in the bed. They both know that it’s only partially out of any self-interest on Danny’s part, and more out of concern. He just lifts the blanket on the other side and lies down with his back to Danny in silence, proving that the bed is in fact more than big enough for two people. The government had decided that a typewritten letter and one night in a hotel room with a queen bed was adequate compensation for making you witness your mother die in front of you. 

Danny doesn’t know how to reach Steve like this. It’s probably the only part of Steve that isn’t open to him by now, this admixture of grief and military discipline and loneliness that turns him flat and unrelentingly stony. He’s holding himself like a soldier at inspection, even now, and after five minutes of the same controlled expansion and contraction of his ribcage, Danny reaches out and places a hand on his left shoulderblade. His breathing pauses for a moment, and Danny doesn’t know what reaction he was expecting, but it wasn’t for Steve to turn over and grab Danny’s suddenly freed hand, his eyes still closed.

His face is littered with cuts and scratches and bruises, clearly visible even under the beard, and it takes every ounce of Danny’s self-control not to smooth his other hand over them, as if his fingertips contained some kind of healing magic, as if he’d pull them away and Steve would be whole again. Instead, he says, “I love you. I’m sorry. I’m here,” because those are the best things he knows how to say.

Steve’s next breath is shuddering, the pattern finally breaking, and Danny squeezes his hand tighter and rubs his thumb in circles across it, a miniaturized memory of the way he’d hold Grace and rub her back when she’d wake up screaming from nightmares about being kidnapped.

“You can cry, Steve. It’s okay.”

Steve shakes his head slightly. “I’m afraid that if I... if I break now, I’m never going to stop breaking,” he explains, voice husky. 

“That’s okay.”

He finally opens his eyes, staring straight into Danny’s, and gives a watery smile. “I have to fly home tomorrow.”

Danny nods. “And if you can’t stop crying, I’ll get you through security and onto the plane and off at the other end. Or I’ll delay the flights, and rebook this hotel room, and we can just stay in here for the day, or the week, or however long you need. I’ll see you through this. No matter what. I promise.”

Steve’s eyes flutter shut again, and he leans forward until their foreheads are touching, nose to nose. They share breath for a moment, before Steve pulls back and his body falls, as if his strings have been cut, leaving him almost limp against the mattress. “She was my last...”

“Your last parental figure. I know.”

“Yes, but... more than that. She was my last tie to that life, to that part of me. The part of me that would spend two months dark in Mexico.”

The part that stays out of Danny’s reach, that has caused him more anxiety over the last ten years than anything else in his four decades of life. He tries not to be relieved at the realisation that the last link to that is severed, but even with the pain on Steve’s face and how much he wants to protect him from it, he still doesn’t quite manage it. 

“Dad, and Joe, and Catherine, and her,” Steve continues. “And I know Cath’s not dead, but she’s not around either. Nor was Doris, I suppose, but...”

“But she was your mom. She could never really be gone till she was- till she was gone.”

“Yeah. And now she’s gone.” He takes another shaking breath. “Her last words... she told me she loved me. I can’t help thinking she never got the chance to know me, let alone love me.”

“I’m sorry,” Danny says again, because there’s nothing else to say. Because Steve is right, Doris never got to see the parts of him that Danny loves most, and because his own anger at the decisions she made in her life that led to that is not going to help alleviate Steve’s anger or grief.

Steve squeezes his eyes shut and his body shakes, an almost violent sob running through him. 

“I wasn’t ready to lose her, Danny.” His voice cracks at the end, and Danny inhales and lets go of his hand to reach out and pull him in until he can feel the irregular rise and fall of Steve’s breathing against his own chest. Steve follows his movement almost blindly, then turns his face into Danny’s shoulder. His beard scrapes along Danny’s throat, sensation unfamiliar. Danny sighs, and folds his arms tighter around Steve, and holds on as he lets go. 

Tears soak into his shirt and into the pillowcase, and Danny stares at the blank bathroom wall, unwilling to close his eyes and risk exhaustion taking over while Steve still sobs in his arms. Instead, he focuses on the interplay of shadows in the corner and the weight of Steve’s arm across his waist and the chill seeping through the thin sheet and the heat of Steve’s breath and the bumps in the paint and the worn cotton of Steve’s shirt, the one Danny brought here from Hawaii because letting him sleep this night in his own clothes, clothes clean of these last eight weeks, seemed like the only thing he could bring with him. He spreads his hands wide, one between Steve’s shoulderblades and one resting on his lower back, and tries to invent some form of touch telepathy just through the pressure of his palms.

Steve is still crying, and his breaths are still shuddering, but they’re regular, and for a moment Danny wonders if he achieved it. He turns his head to the side, pressing a kiss to the top of Steve’s head, and Steve sighs deeply. 

They neither of them sleep that night, both drifting in and out of dozes when driven there by exhaustion, until daylight breaks over the Capitol in pink and gold, illuminating them through carelessly drawn curtains. The shadows are driven from the corners, and when Danny offers a hand to Steve as they get out of bed, Steve takes it and hesitates for a moment in the light’s sharpness before wrapping him in a hug.   
“Thankyou,” he says softly, with the weight of testimony behind it.   
“I love you, babe. What else could I have done?”  
Steve breathes in, and out, and nods. “I love you. Thankyou.”  
Danny hears the history behind his words, and does nothing but hold him tighter and breathe. 


End file.
